


The Great Celestial Bake Off

by BookishAngel (DisnerdingAvenger)



Series: An Angel and a Demon [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Baking, Competitive Celestial Beings, Fluff and Humor, Ineffable Godparents, M/M, holiday drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18502192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisnerdingAvenger/pseuds/BookishAngel
Summary: In dire need of assistance, Adam Young calls Aziraphale at 9:04 p.m. on December 21st. It's an emergency, he insists.He forgot to tell his mother about the school bake sale and now it's only two days away.





	The Great Celestial Bake Off

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't watched Michael Sheen's episode of Great British Bake Off, you've gotta do that. It's on YouTube and it is a GIFT.

Crowley would never admit it, but he quite liked the flat above Aziraphale’s bookshop. Sure, it wasn’t at all up to his chic standards and there was tartan _everywhere_ , but it was _cozy_ – and, as a cold-blooded creature, the demon always gravitated toward cozy places.

Aziraphale’s flat was cozy. His bed with the terrible tartan quilt was cozy. His arms were cozy, too, and that was where the demon currently resided, curled up beneath the duvet with his head pillowed on the angel’s chest, his arms wound tightly around his middle. They’d begun to fall into the habit of snuggling more and more as of late; when the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t had came and went and nothing terrible happened afterward, the angel and the demon settled into a comfortable routine of spending quite literally every second together. There were lunches at the Ritz, dinners at Aziraphale’s favourite sushi restaurant, and cozy nights in where Crowley dozed and Aziraphale read.

They liked their routine. They’d tried, a few days after Nearmageddon, to spend some time apart – but Crowley ended up back on Aziraphale’s doorstep less than five hours later, claiming that he was bored. They both knew the truth, though; Crowley had missed him. Aziraphale had missed Crowley, too.

So, here they were - virtually inseparable and utterly comfortable with remaining that way.

While Aziraphale was fully dressed as he lounged atop the blankets, flipping through a copy of _Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde _ and periodically sipping his cocoa, Crowley had opted for a pair of black silk pyjamas for his nap. He was presently buried beneath every blanket that Aziraphale owned and equally buried in the angel’s arms; Aziraphale had one wrapped securely around the clinging demon while his other hand held his book.

He only looked up from his page when the telephone, an old-fashioned rotary thing that no human had used in decades, rang on his bedside table. Staring, perplexed, at the telephone as it rang, Aziraphale made a curious noise. Very few people had his number, aside from rare book sellers and, of course, Crowley. It obviously wasn’t the demon calling him and he’d made no inquiries recently about first-editions, so he had quite literally no clue who could be calling him, much less so late in the evening.

Marking his page with a ribbon, Aziraphale reached over and lifted the receiver from its cradle to put the telephone to his ear with a skeptical, “Hello?”

“Aziraphale! Good, you’re home. I’ve got a favour that I need to ask.”

The angel blinked when he realized who, exactly, was calling – for, of all the people who could have been giving him a ring at 9:04 p.m. on December 21st, the Antichrist would have been the last person that he would have guessed.

“Adam, my boy; you do realize what time it is, don’t you? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Glancing down when Crowley shifted at the sound of Aziraphale’s voice, the angel slid his hand up from Crowley’s arm to instead card it through the demon’s hair, willing him to relax. It didn’t take long for Crowley to comply, a soft snore escaping him mere seconds later as he settled back down.

“Yeah, but I’ve got a problem. A big problem. A problem that only you can help me with.”

Blinking rapidly, Aziraphale felt a slight wash of panic run through his corporation. The Antichrist was calling him for help, with a big problem, at 9:05 p.m. only a few months after the End had been averted? That didn’t bode well. Ghosting his hand back down, he held Crowley more securely while the demon slept, feeling the colour drain from his cheeks.

“What problem would that be, exactly? You haven’t, ehm… You haven’t heard from your _father_ , have you?”

“What?” Adam asked, his voice crackling over the antique phone. “Oh! No. No, it’s nothing like that. It’s a school problem.”

Exhaling a breath of relief, Aziraphale relaxed only to furrow his brow, asking, “A school problem? How can I help you with a school problem? If you needed a book, dear boy, you could have called in the morning-”

“Not a _book_ problem; it’s a very urgent, very important school problem involving-”

“Yes?”

“-the school bake sale on Friday.”

Aziraphale blinked. He blinked several times and stared at the wall on the opposite side of the room. Was this a practical joke? _Surely_ the Antichrist wouldn’t really call him about a _bake sale._

“Dear boy, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t school bake sales the sort of thing that your parents ought to be helping you with?”

“Yeah, technically,” Adam agreed, and he sounded hesitant before admitting, “but I sort of forgot to tell my mum about it, because I sort of forgot about it entirely, and now the bake sale is in two days and I’m supposed to be bringing cookies and cupcakes but I can’t ask my mum _now_ because she’ll be mad that I didn’t tell her sooner.”

Biting his lip, Aziraphale paused before asking, “How, exactly, am _I_ meant to help you with this?”

“Well,” Adam mused, sounding entirely authoritative, “As my ethereal godfather, you’re the closest thing that I’ve got to another relative.”

“I hardly think that’s tru-”

“You’re also the only one who can’t get mad at me for waiting ‘til the last minute. Y’know, ‘cause I stopped the Apocalypse.”

“Ah.”

“And I fixed your bookshop.”

“Indeed, you did.”

“So, the way I see it, you sort of owe me, don’t you?”

Aziraphale had a dozen thoughts buzzing around in his head. After a long moment, he sighed.

“You want me to make cookies for your school bake sale?”

“And cupcakes.”

“It’s on Friday?”

“At one o’clock,” the Antichrist confirmed.

Still holding the phone to his ear, Aziraphale thumped his head back against the bedframe. Finally, he said, “Alright. I’ll help you. But _do_ try to be more on top of these things, dear boy; diligence is a virtue.”

“Thanks, Aziraphale!” Adam chimed and, without another word, the line went dead. Groaning quietly, the angel reached over and placed the receiver back in its cradle.

* * *

When Crowley woke up the next morning, he noticed a few things.

The first thing that he noticed was that the bedroom was cold; winter was properly settling in, both into the flat and into his bones. Curling his toes beneath his mound of blankets, the demon made a distressed little noise.

The second thing that he noticed was that, for the first time since the averted Apocalypse, he’d woken up alone. Aziraphale’s warm, squishy body was not beside him, begging to be snuggled; his side of the bed was empty, as neatly made as it had been last night, and troublingly cold. He clearly had been gone for a while.

Making another distressed noise, the cold demon whined, “ _Azzzzzziraphaaaaaaaale?_ ”

From somewhere in the flat, Crowley heard a clatter followed by a hushed, “ _Oh, dear_.”

It was then that Crowley smelled it; something positively _Heavenly._ Something rich, and warm, and chocolatey, and spicy. Darting his tongue out to taste the air, he hummed when he was greeted by sugar – and lots of it. Crawling out of Aziraphale’s bed, Crowley grimaced when his feet touched the cold floor and miracled himself a pair of slippers and a dressing gown before he trudged toward the kitchen.

It was there that he found Aziraphale trying to clean up bright red icing from where he had dropped his mixing bowl on the floor. The angel’s face was flushed from the heat of the oven and covered with flour and smeared with melted chocolate; he looked good enough to eat. Licking his lips, Crowley pushed that thought to the back of his mind – for now – and asked, “What’re you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” the angel asked, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his button-down, neatly protected beneath a baby-blue apron that had “ _#1 Cookbook Collector_ ” printed on it in white, swirly letters.

Glancing around the kitchen, which rather resembled a warzone, Crowley said, “No. Not really.”

Rolling his eyes as he sat back on his haunches on the floor, Aziraphale declared, “I’m  _baking_. Cookies and cupcakes.”

Strolling over to the counter, where a bowl of sugar cookie dough resided, Crowley grabbed a nearby spoon to steal some and leaned back against the counter as he stuck it into his mouth. It was, as his earlier taste of the air had suggested, mouth-wateringly sugary.

“Why’re you baking cookies and cupcakes, exactly?”

Sighing, Aziraphale pushed himself to his feet and walked over to shoo Crowley away from his cookie dough, placing the icing bowl into the sink.

“Adam called last night asking for my help. Evidently, he forgot to tell his mother about a school bake sale happening this Friday and he needs a family member to help him with the baking.”

Arching an eyebrow, Crowley intoned dryly, “Last I checked, you two weren’t family.”

“I’m his _godfather_ ,” the angel huffed, blushing as he added, “…sort of.”

Watching as the angel diligently scrubbed the bowl that he had dropped into the sink, Crowley stared at Aziraphale for a long moment before huffing and asking him, “If you’re his godfather, then so I am. Why didn’t he ask _me_ for help?”

Rolling his eyes, Aziraphale shot Crowley a fond, if patronizing, gaze.

“My dear,” he cooed, reaching over to pat Crowley’s cheek. “You are many things, but a baker is not one of them.”

Scoffing, clearly offended, Crowley retorted, “I am _so_ a baker! I’ve baked circles around people before. I’m a proper all-star baker.” Pursing his lips, Crowley frowned as he stalked over to the other side of the kitchen, pointing to the tray of cupcakes that were sitting on the table.

“Besides!” he exclaimed as he pointed, “ _You_ certainly aren’t an all-star baker! Just look at this mess!”

Turning his head, Aziraphale huffed when he realized Crowley was pointing to his cupcakes. True, they were a bit lopsided and the icing was dripping off of them, but they _tasted_ divine. He’d tested several himself after they came out of the oven. Taste, at the end of the day, was what truly mattered.

“My cupcakes are _delicious_ , thank you very much,” he quipped, resuming doing his dishes, and Crowley shook his head.

“You didn’t even wait for them to cool before you put the icing on, angel. It’s all sliding off! Nobody’s going to buy these.”

Huffing properly now, Aziraphale turned to face the demon, soapy water and bubbles dripping from his fingers onto the floor.

“They most certainly _will_ buy them! What do you know about bake sales, anyway?”

“More than you!” Crowley snapped, eyeing the cupcakes with clear disdain. “I know enough about bake sales to know that people buy what _looks_ good. Nobody’s going to buy your goo cakes.”

“ _Goo cakes!_ ” Aziraphale cried indignantly.

“Yes! _Goo cakes!_ That’s what they are! Goo!”

“Well, I never!” Aziraphale snapped, grabbing a hand towel to dry off his fingers, scowling as he stalked over until he and Crowley were toe-to-toe. There was a spot of flour on his glasses that, under normal circumstances, Crowley would have kindly wiped away – but he was _annoyed._

“If you think you’re such a good baker,” Aziraphale grumbled, glaring, “then I’d like to see _you_ try to make one-hundred and fifty cupcakes and twenty-five dozen cookies by Friday afternoon.”

“Angel, that’s way too many,” Crowley quipped, rolling his eyes, and Aziraphale’s own eyes narrowed. Taking a step closer, the angel hissed, “There is _no such thing_ as _too many_ sweets.”

Scoffing, Crowley shook his head and, with a wave of his hand, he fully dressed himself in his black suit, red shirt, sunglasses, and a black apron that had “ _Kissssssssss the Cook_ ” printed on it in elegant red lettering. Staring down at the angel, their noses touching, he repeated, “One-hundred and fifty cupcakes and twenty-five dozen cookies.”

“Precisely.”

“Prepare to taste bittersweet defeat, angel.”

Aziraphale blinked – and Crowley was gone.

* * *

Materializing in his own flat, Crowley made his way over to the pristine white kitchen, willing everything that he needed to kick Aziraphale’s arse at baking into being in the cupboards and refrigerator. It was all about _presentation;_ that was what the angel had never been able to understand. Not when it came to his clothes, nor his flat, nor his cooking. Humans liked things that _looked_ good and they would pay through the nose for them.

He intended to make the Hope Diamond of cookies and the Prada of cupcakes. Adam would be coming to _him_ for help from now on – _that_ was for sure.

Setting about his baking, Crowley started tossing all of the ingredients haphazardly into several mixing bowls, not bothering to follow any instructions. If he wanted everything to turn out beautifully, then it would.

Taste, however, was another matter entirely.

* * *

Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t speak to nor see each other until Friday when they regrouped at Adam’s school with their respective baked goods; it was the longest that they had been apart since before the arrival of the Antichrist on Earth. Both had missed each other terribly, but they would never admit it; they were both too stubborn _and_ too competitive.

When they arrived at Tadfield Primary School, they met each other on the sidewalk, eyes narrowed, lips pursed, and boxes of cookies and cupcakes in their arms.

“Anthony,” Aziraphale quipped haughtily.

“ _Misssssster_ Fell,” Crowley returned, eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses.

Their staring contest was interrupted by four bikes whizzing past; Adam and the Them had arrived on the scene. Bikes chained to the bike rack near the bus stop, the children all made their way over to the angel and the demon.

“I knew you two would come through!” Adam chirped, grinning.

Aziraphale blinked. Crowley blinked.

“Us… two?” Aziraphale asked and the Antichrist nodded.

“Of course. I knew Crowley was there when I called; I could hear him snoring.”

Crowley made a huffy, indignant noise in the back of his throat. Adam seemed unaffected by it.

“Anyhow, I knew that if you two worked together, it’d be aces. Better than anything Mum could’ve whipped up.” Leading his friends inside, Adam called back, “I’ll see you in the gym!”

Wilting slightly once Adam was inside, the wind whipping his scarf about, Aziraphale mumbled, “Oh dear.”

Pursing his lips as he stared after Adam, Crowley glanced down at Aziraphale and asked, “How’d yours turn out?”

Aziraphale wilted further, his cheeks turning pink as a miserable look filled his eyes.

“They’re rubbish! Absolute rubbish! You were right; the icing all turned to goo and nothing would stick, and the cookies… Oh, Crowley, the _cookies!_ ” Groaning, the angel plunked himself down on a nearby bench and opened the box on top of his pile. Inside of it were cookies that looked like they were meant to be snowmen but had turned out misshapen and with icing that bled and made them look more suitable for Halloween than Christmas.

Biting his lip with a sharp incisor, Crowley hesitated before moving to sit down beside Aziraphale. Flipping one of his own boxes open, he heard the angel’s sharp intake of breath.

Half of the box was filled with impeccably frosted cupcakes, complete with festive little edible ball bearings, and the other half was filled with carefully cut out cookies, iced to resemble a little blond angel with a blue tartan scarf and a demon with sunglasses and a Father Christmas cap. Aziraphale sulked and turned away.

“Oh, _good for you._ They’re beautiful, just _beautiful._ Go and reap your glory.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley intoned, staring at the angel until he reluctantly met his gaze. “Try one.”

“What?”

“ _Try one_ ,” Crowley insisted.

Hesitantly, the angel reached in and grabbed one of the little demon-shaped cookies. Staring at it for a long moment, he took a bite.

As he chewed, his face began to turn rather red.

He swallowed – and then he choked.

Crowley willed a glass of milk into his hand which the angel gratefully took, downing its contents rather desperately.

“My dear, that was… It’s…”

“Horrid. Absolutely horrid. Too spicy, too dry, too everything-that-can-possibly-go-wrong-with-a-cookie,” Crowley stated, flipping the box shut again. Without hesitation, he reached over and dumped all of his boxes into the bin next to the bench.

Eyeing the angel’s deformed snowmen, Crowley reached over and nabbed one before Aziraphale could stop him. He took a bite and couldn’t help his reaction; it was involuntary. As the sugar cookie melted on his tongue, his yellow eyes rolled back into his head and he _moaned_.

“That’s fucking _deliciousssss_ ,” he stated, taking another eager bite. Aziraphale blushed and hid a smile behind his scarf.

“You think so?”

“I _know_ so,” Crowley insisted as he polished off his cookie, curling his serpentine tongue around his fingers to lick them clean. The icing may have been warped and gooey, but it tasted how sunshine felt. Without hesitation, he greedily reached for a cupcake.

It garnered a similar reaction and the noises that he made when he took a bite were nothing short of sinful.

“ _Really_ , my dear,” Aziraphale tutted, blushing properly now, glancing in the opposite direction so Crowley wouldn’t be able to see his warm cheeks.

“ _Yes, really_ ,” Crowley remarked, groaning again when he took another bite. It tasted good enough to make him squeeze his eyes shut and curl his toes. An angel shouldn’t be capable of making something that tasted so bloody _decadent_.

It was a crime, really, that no one would buy anything that Aziraphale had to offer. His cookies and his cupcakes looked nothing short of disgusting, and it _really was_ all about presentation at bake sales, whether they liked it or not. The patrons were going to buy whatever looked good and they would judge the taste later.

Pausing as he sucked chocolate frosting from his index finger, Crowley let his sunglasses slip down his nose as he turned to look at the still-blushing angel.

“Aziraphale.”

“Mmm?”

“ _Aziraphale_ ,” Crowley repeated, waiting until the angel was looking at him to finish speaking. “We have to work together.”

Knitting his brows together, Aziraphale looked puzzled as he asked, “Whatever do you mean?”

“The _baking_ ,” the demon insisted, resting a hand on Aziraphale’s coat-clad arm. “Everything you make tastes divine but looks disgusting. Everything that _I_ make _looks_ divine but _tastes_ disgusting.” Waiting to see if the angel was catching on, he repeated, “We have to work together.”

Gradually, Aziraphale’s lips parted into a little ‘O’ of understanding. His blue eyes sparkling behind his glasses, he confirmed, “I do the baking and you handle the presentation?”

Smirking, Crowley hissed, “ _Precisssssssssely_.”

A proper sparkle shining in his eyes now, Aziraphale grinned and found Crowley’s hand with his own, giving it a squeeze.

“Well, let’s get to it then. There isn’t a moment to waste.”

He moved to throw his own failed cookies and cupcakes into the bin with Crowley’s, but Crowley hissed – a proper, _snake’s_ hiss – and darted a hand out to stop him.

“Don’t you dare,” he all but growled. “The humans can have whatever we make together, but those?” Taking the boxes, he tucked them beneath his free arm and hissed, “ _Thossssssse_ are _mine._ ”

* * *

With a bit of divine intervention and a great deal of miracle-working, Aziraphale and Crowley managed to turn out the required number of baked goods – _together_ – after less than three hours in the school’s empty home-economics classroom.

Their table in the gym was clustered with sugar cookies shaped like perfectly symmetrical snowmen, cozy angels, and stylish demons respectively, along with chocolate cupcakes with edible ball bearings that were to _die_ for. They looked, and tasted, like absolute perfection.

By the end of the bake sale, there wasn’t a single sweet left behind and they had easily made the most money out of all the parents who had contributed. Plenty of fathers and mothers and grandparents and aunts and uncles kept tossing bitter glances their way whilst packing up leftover chocolate chip cookies and vanilla cupcakes. Adam, on the other hand, was tickled pink. After the bake sale had concluded, he walked over to their table accompanied by the school’s principal.

“So _you two_ are the ones who made those fascinating little cookies,” the principal, a balding middle-aged man, mused. “An angel _and_ a demon – an interesting choice for the holidays.”

Crowley smirked.

“One must always have balance,” Aziraphale mused, grinning as well.

“Remind me again how you’re related to Adam?” the principal asked. Crowley opened his mouth to answer but Aziraphale beat him to the punch, gently wrapping his arms around one of Crowley’s after taking his hand.

“We’re his godparents,” the angel stated with a smile and the principal blinked, glancing between them.

“… _both_ of you?”

Narrowing his eyes behind his sunglasses, Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s hand and confirmed, “ _Both_ of us. _Together_. Is that a _problem?_ ”

The principal blushed.

“No, no; of course not. Nothing’s a problem; nothing at all. I came over here to thank you, after all; the school’s Save the Whales foundation _was_ Adam’s idea, so it was a pleasure to see his… _godparents_ bring in so much money for the cause. A pleasant holiday to you both,” he finished, bustling off to deal with the remaining parents.

Aziraphale turned his gaze on Adam, who looked rather like he’d been caught out.

“The Save the Whales foundation?” Aziraphale asked, arching an eyebrow. “This bake sale was for a foundation that _you_ came up with and you _forgot_ about it?”

“Well…” Adam mused with a boyish grin while he shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect.”

He was quite right, too. Nobody’s perfect… on their own. But with the right partner, you can get quite close.


End file.
